Technology from Noppera-Bo Technologies Ltd – a joint venture by Castlebridge and Altada companies – will be used in a project in Sweden “to ensure the roll out and deployment of ‘smart city’ systems can be implemented in a manner that meets the increasingly stringent requirements of data protection legislation in the EU”. The project will be led by Castlebridge’s Swedish partner, Think Privacy AB, with additional assistance from the consulting team in Castlebridge and the technology development teams in Altada and Noppera-Bo Technologies.

Noppera-Bo Technologies has developed a product that uses advanced machine learning to simplify the process of obscuring identifiable information from CCTV or other video sources.

It provides AI-assisted automation of processing to allow data controllers to either redact fully from video or to select an individual in recording who should be left identifiable. The company said its algorithms and processes do not use “off the shelf” application programming interfaces, but had been designed “from the ground up in line with privacy by design principles”.

Castlebridge Managing Director and Chief Executive of Noppera-Bo Technologies, Daragh O Brien, said: “Castlebridge identified the need for effective and cost-effective redaction technologies under GDPR over three years ago and we have worked with our technology partners in Altada to develop video redaction technologies that are not simply reusing commercially licensed APIs but have been engineered from the ground up to be privacy enhancing. This project will give us the opportunity to develop our product further for the world of Internet of Things in a cityscape context, a potential application we identified early on through Castlebridge’s consulting and training work with local authorities.”